The Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

April 10 (23)-April 25 (May 8), 1906

Speech in Reply to the Debate on the Agrarian
Question[1]

Iadvance two main theses:

(1) the peasants will never
agree to municipalisation;

(2) without a democratic republic, with out the fully
guaranteed sovereignty of the people and with out the election of government
officials, municipalisation would be harmful. In developing these theses, I will
first deal with the more serious objections raised against
nationalisation. Undoubtedly, the most important objection is the one
raised by Comrade
Plekhanov. Comrade Plekhanov said literally the following, I took down his
words: “We can not under any circumstances be in favour of
nationalisation.” This is a mistake. I venture to assert that if a peasant
revolution is really brought about in Russia, and if the political revolution that
will accompany it reaches the point of creating a really democratic republic,
Comrade Plekhanov will consider it possible to support nationalisation; and if
a democratic republic is really brought about in Russia in the forthcoming
revolution, then not only the Russian but the entire international situation of
the movement will push things towards nationalisation. But if this condition
does not arise, municipalisation will still prove to be a fiction; in those
circumstances it can be carried out only as possibly a new form of
compensation. Comrade John[2]uses the term alienation instead of
confiscation, and, as was evident from his speech, he did not choose this term
by chance. Yet it is a purely Cadet term: it can be taken to mean anything you
please, and the compensation scheme proposed by the Cadets fits in with it
completely. To go on. “What guarantee is there against restoration?” asked
Comrade Plekhanov. I don’t thinkthis question has any close and inseparable bearing on the programme we are
      discussing; but since it has been raised, a definite and unambiguous
      answer must be given to it. If we mean a real, fully effective, economic
      guarantee against restoration, that is, a guarantee that would create
      the economic conditions precluding restoration, then we shall have to
      say:

the only guarantee against restoration is a socialist revolution in the
West. There can be no other guarantee in the real and full sense of the
term. Without this condition, in which ever other way the problem is solved
(municipalisation, division of the land, etc.), restoration will be not only
possible, but positively inevitable. I would formulate this proposition as
follows: the Russian revolution can achieve victory by its own efforts, but it
cannot possibly hold and consolidate its gains by its own strength. It cannot do
this unless there is a socialist revolution in the West. Without this condition
restoration is inevitable, whether we have municipalisation, or nationalisation,
or division of the land: for under each and every form of possession and
property the small proprietor will always be a bulwark of restoration. After the
complete victory of the democratic revolution the small proprietor will
inevitably turn against the proletariat; and the sooner the common enemies of
the proletariat and of the small proprietors, such as the capitalists, the
landlords, the financial bourgeoisie, and so forth are overthrown, the sooner
will this happen. Our democratic republic has no other re serve than the
socialist proletariat in the West. And in this connection we must not lose sight
of the fact that the classical bourgeois revolution in Europe, namely, the
Great French Revolution of the eighteenth century, took place in an
international situation that was entirely different from the one in which the
Russian revolution is taking place. France at the end of the eighteenth century
was surrounded by feudal and semi-feudal states. Russia in the twentieth
century, accomplishing her bourgeois revolution, is surround ed by countries in
which the socialist proletariat stands fully prepared on the eve of the final
battle with the bourgeoisie. If such relatively insignificant events as the
tsar’s promise of freedom in Russia on October 17 gave the powerful impetus it
did to the proletarian movement in Western Europe, if a telegram from
St. Petersburg announcing the issue of thenotorious Constitutional Manifesto was sufficient to make the Austrian workers
pour into the streets, to lead to a number of demonstrations and collisions with
the troops in the largest industrial towns of Austria, you can imagine what the
international socialist proletariat will do when it receives news from Russia,
not of promises of freedom, but of its actual achievement, and the complete
victory of the revolutionary peasantry. If, however, the question of a
guarantee against restoration is put on a different basis, that is, if we mean a
conditional and relative guarantee against restoration, then we shall have to
say: the only conditional and relative guarantee against restoration is that
the revolution should be effected in the most drastic manner possible, effected
by the revolutionary class directly, with the least possible participation of
go-betweens, compromisers and all sorts of conciliators; that this revolution
should really be carried to the end. In this respect, my draft provides the
maximum as regards guarantees against restoration.

Mydraft proposes the formation of peasant committees as the direct levers of
the revolutionary peasant movement, and as the most desirable form of that
movement. Translated into simple language, peasant committees mean calling upon
the peasants to set to work immediately and directly to settle accounts with the
government officials and the land lords in the most drastic manner. Peasant
committees mean calling upon the people who are being oppressed by the
survivals of serfdom and the police regime to eradicate these survivals “in a
plebeian manner”,[3]as Marx put it. Comrade Plekhanov thinks
that this premise of a revolution carried to the end, of a revolution which
introduces the election of government officials by the people, is reminiscent of
anarchism, which is abhorrent to him, just as to all of us, of course. But it
is extremely strange that the question of the people electing the government
officials should remind anyone of anarchism, or should, at a time like the
present, bring a smile to the lips of any Social-Democrat, except Bernstein,
perhaps. It is at the present time that this slogan—the election of
government officials by the people—assumes direct and immense practical
significance. All our activity, our propaganda and agitation among the masses of
the peasantry should consist largely in propagating, spreading andexplaining this slogan. To advocate a peasant revolution, to speak of an
      agrarian revolution at all seriously,, and at the same time to say nothing
      about the need for real democracy, which, among other things, includes the
      election of government officials by the people, is a crying
      contradiction. This reproach about anarchism in this connection only
      reminds me of the German Bernsteinians who not long ago, in controversy
      with Kautsky, accused him of advocating anarchism.

Wemust plainly and definitely say to the peasants:

if you want to carry the agrarian revolution to the end, you must also carry the
political revolution to the end; for unless the political revolution is carried
to the end there will be no durable agrarian revolution, and perhaps none at
all. Without a complete democratic revolution, without the election of
government officials by the people, we shall have either peasant disturbances,
or Cadet agrarian reforms. We shall not have what would deserve the lofty title
used by Plekhanov—a peasant revolution. To go on. Municipalisation
provides a wide arena for the class struggle, said Plekhanov. I have tried to
use his own words as nearly as possible, and I must say emphatically that what
he says is definitelywrong. It is wrong both in the political and in
the economic sense. Other things being equal, a municipality and municipal
landownership undoubtedly allow a narrower arena for the class struggle than the
whole nation, and the nationalisation of the land. In a democratic republic,
nationalisation of the land would undoubtedly provide the widest field for the
class struggle—the widest field possible and thinkable under
capitalism. Nationalisation means the abolition of absolute rent, a reduction in
the price of grain, the maximum freedom for competition and the free penetration
of capital into agriculture. Municipalisation, on the contrary, narrows the
field of the nation-wide class struggle, for it does not free all production
relations in agriculture from absolute rent, and it cuts up our general demands
into particular demands. At all events, municipalisation obscures the class
struggle. From this point of view, only one answer can be given to Comrade
Plekhanov’s question. From this point of view municipalisation does not hold
water. Municipalisation means narrowing and obscuring the class struggle.

Plekhanov’snext objection concerns the question of seizing power. He perceives
in my draft o.f the agrarian programme the idea of seizing power. I must admit
that my draft does, indeed, contain the idea of the seizure of power by the
revolutionary peasantry; but it is a great mistake to put this on a par with the
Narodnaya Volya[4]idea of seizing power. In the 1870s and 1880s,
when the idea of seizing power was fostered by the Narodnaya Volya, the latter
consisted of a group of intellectuals, and there was no really mass
revolutionary movement of any extent to speak of. Seizure of power was the
desire, or the phrase of a handful of intellectuals, but not the inevitable next
step of an already developing mass movement. Now, after October, November and
December 1905, after the broad masses of the working class, the semi-proletarian
elements and the peasantry have shown the world forms of the revolutionary
movement such as have not been witnessed for a long time; after we have had the
struggle of the revolutionary people for power flaring up in Moscow, in the South
and in the Baltic Provinces, to put the idea of the revolutionary people winning
political power on a par with the ideas of the Narodnaya Volya means being
fully twenty-five years behind the times, means striking out a whole vast period
of Russian history. Plekhanov said we must not be afraid of an agrarian
revolution. But this fear that the revolutionary peasantry will win power is
fear of an agrarian revolution. Agrarian revolution is an empty phrase if its
victory does not presuppose the winning of power by the revolutionary
people. Without this latter condition, it will not be an agrarian revolution but
a peasant revolt, or a Cadet agrarian reform. In concluding the examination of
this point, I should like to remind you that even the resolution of the comrades
of the Minority, published in the second issue ofPartiiniye Izvestia,
says that we are already being confronted with the task of wresting power from
the government.

ComradePlekhanov thinks that the expression “the creative activity of
the people”, which I don’t think you will find in our resolutions, but
which, if we are to trust Comrade Plekhanov’s memory, I used in my speech, is
reminiscent of old acquaintances—the Narodnaya Volya and the
Socialist-Revolutionaries. I think that this recollection ofComrade Plekhanov’s is also twenty-five years behind the times. Recall what
      happened in Russia in the last quarter of 1905—strikes, Soviets of
      Workers’ Deputies, insurrections, peasant committees, railwaymen’s
      committees, and so forth. All this shows that the popular movement was
      passing into the form of insurrection, and these bodies were undoubtedly
      rudimentary organs of revolutionary authority. And what I said about the
      creative activity of the people had a very definite and concrete meaning:
      it referred precisely to these historic days of the Russian revolution,
      and it characterised this method of fighting not only against the old
      regime, but by means of a revolutionary authority, a method employed for
      the first time by the broad masses of the Russian workers and peasants in
      the famous October and December days. If our revolution has been buried,
      then so have these rudimentary forms of the revolutionary authority of the
      peasants and workers. But if your reference to a peasant revolution is
      not a mere phrase, if we have a real agrarian revolution in the true
      sense of the word, then we shall undoubtedly see a repetition of the
      October and December events on a much greater scale. A revolutionary
      authority, not of intellectuals, not of a group of conspirators, but of
      the workers and peasants, has already existed in Russia, has already been
      put into effect in the course of our revolution. It was crushed by the
      triumph of reaction; but if there are real grounds for our conviction that
      the revolution will revive, then we must also anticipate the inevitable
      revival, development and success of new organs of revolutionary authority
      that will be even more resolute and more closely connected with the
      peasantry and the proletariat than the preceding ones. Hence, by raising
      this battered and ridiculous bogy of the Narodnaya Volya, Plekhanov has
      merely dodged the task of analysing the October and December forms of the
      movement.

Lastly,let us examine the question whether my programme is flexible and
“well shod on all four hoofs”. I think that in this respect, too, my
agrarian programme is more satisfactory than all the others. What if things go
badly with the revolution? What if it turns out to be impossible to carry
through to the end our democratic revolution unless all the “ifs” I
have put in my draft are met? In that case, we shall certainly have to reckon
with the conditions ofpeasant farming and of peasant land tenure that already exist. In this
connection I will mention the extremely important factor of rented land. If we
can conceive of things going badly with the revolution, of it not being carried
through to the end, we must undoubtedly reckon with the existence and
persistence of this factor. And in my draft, the Party’s tasks in the event of
this worst contingency arising, in the event of all the allegedly utopian
“ifs” being absent, are formulated more fully, more precisely and
much more soberly than in Comrade Maslov’s draft. Thus my programme provides
practical slogans both for the present conditions of peas ant farming and
peasant land tenure, and for the contingency that capitalism will have the best
possible prospects of development. Comrade John tried to be witty and said that
my programme contains too many programmes, that it provides for both
confiscation and the renting of land, and that the one precludes the other. But
his joke fell flat, because confiscation of the landed estates does not preclude
the renting of land: this takes place on the peasants’ land as well. Hence
Comrade Plekhanov was particularly wrong when he advanced his particularly
slashing argument against me. He implied that it was easy to draw up a programme
for the contingency that everything will go off splendidly. Anybody can draw up
a programme like that; but try to draw up a programme for the contingency that
the best conditions don’t exist. In answer to this argument, I assert that it is
precisely having in view the contingency of the worst possible course or outcome
of our revolution that my programme is particularly realistic and particularly
“well shod”, for it speaks of the confiscation of the landed estates
and makes provision for questions such as that of renting land. But Comrade
John’s draft, which says nothing about these worst conditions, that is, about
the absence of complete political democracy, merely provides for
municipalisation; and municipalisation without the election of government
officials by the people, without the abolition of the standing army, and so
forth, is as dangerous as nationalisation, and even more so. That is why I
insist on retaining all the “ifs” that Plekhanov has so unjustly
condemned.

Andso, the peasants will not accept municipalisation. Comrade
Kartvelov[5]said that in the Caucasus the peasantsare fully in agreement with the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but they ask whether
      they will have the right to sell the land they obtain as a result of
      division, or of socialisation. Quite right, Comrade Kartvelov! Your
      observations fully coincide with the peasants’ interests in general, and
      with the peasants’ conception of their interests. But it is precisely
      because the peasants regard every agrarian reform from the point of view
      of whether they will have the right to sell the extra land they obtain
      that they will undoubtedly be opposed to municipalisation, or
      Zemstvo-isation. The peasants still confuse the Zemstvo with the rural
      superintendent, and they have much more reason to do so than is assumed by
      the haughty Cadet professors of law who scoff at the ignorance of the
      peasants. That is why, before speaking about municipal isation, it is
      necessary, absolutely necessary, to speak about the election of government
      officials by the people. At present, however, until this democratic
      demand is carried out, it is appropriate to speak only of confiscation in
      general, or of division of the land. That is why, to simplify matters for
      the Congress on this fundamental question, I propose the following: as
      Comrade Borisov’s[6]programme has a number of features in common with mine
      and is based on the principle of division and not of nationalisation, I
      withdraw my programme and leave it to the Congress to express its opinion
      on the question of division or municipalisation. If you reject
      division—or perhaps it would be more correct to say
      “when” you reject division—I, of course, shall have to
      withdraw my draft for good, as hopeless. If, however, you accept division,
      I will submit my programme in its entirety as an amendment to Comrade
      Borisov’s draft. I would also remind you, in reply to the reproach that I
      want to foist nationalisation on the peasants, that my programme contains“Variant A”, which expressly speaks of removing any
    idea of foisting anything upon the peasants against their will. Hence the
    substitution of Borisov’s draft for mine in the preliminary voting will not
    affect the substance of the matter in the least, and will only make it
    easier and simpler for us to as certain what the Congress really wants. In
    my opinion, municipalisation is wrong and harmful; division is wrong, but
    not harmful.

Iwill refer briefly to the difference between the two.The “divisionists” rightly interpret the facts, but they
have forgotten what Marx said about the old materialism: “The
materialists interpreted the world; the point, however, is not only to
interpret the world, but to change it.”[7]The peasant says: “The land is God’s, the land is the people’s, the land
is nobody’s.” The “divisionists” tell us that the peasant says this
without realising what he is saying; that he says one thing and means
another. All that the peasants are really striving for, they tell us, is
additional land; they want to enlarge their small farms, and no more. All this
is quite true. But our disagreement with the “divisionists” does not
end here, it only begins. We must use what the peasants say, even if it is
economically unsound or meaningless, as a hook for our propaganda. We must say
to them: You say that everybody ought to have the right to use the land? You
want to transfer the land to the people? Excellent! But what does transferring
the land to the people mean? Who controls the people’s wealth and the people’s
property? The government officials, the Trepovs. Do you want to transfer the
land to Trepov and to the government officials? No. Every peasant will say that
it is not to them that he wants to transfer the land. Do you want to transfer
the land to the Petrunkeviches and Rodichevs,[8]who, perhaps, will sit on the municipal councils? No. The peasant will certainly
not want to transfer the land to these gentle men. Hence—we will explain
to the peasants—if the land is to be transferred to the whole people in a
way that will benefit the peasants, it is necessary to ensure that all
government officials without exception are elected by the people. Hence my
proposal for nationalisation, with the proviso that a democratic republic is
fully guaranteed, suggests the right line of conduct to our propagandists and
agitators; for it clearly and vividly shows them that discussion of the agrarian
demands of the peasantry should serve as a basis for political propaganda in
general, and for propaganda in favour of a republic in particular. For example,
the peasant Mishin, who was elected to the Duma by the Stavropol peasants,
brought with him an instruction from his electors which has been published in
full inRusskoye Gosudarstvo.[9]In this instruction, the peasants demand the abolition of Zemstvo officials,
the erection of elevators, and the transfer of all theland to the state. This last demand is undoubtedly a reactionary prejudice, for
      in constitutional Russia today and tomorrow the state is and will be a
      police and military despotism. But we must not simply reject this demand
      as a harmful prejudice; we must “hook on” to it in order to
      explain to Mishin and his like how things really stand. We must tell
      Mishin and his like that. the demand for the transfer of the land to the
      state expresses, although very badly, an idea that is extremely important
      and useful for the peasants. The transfer of the land to the state can and
      will be very useful for the peasants only when the state becomes a fully
      democratic republic, when all government officials are elected by the
      people, when the standing army is abolished, and so forth. For all these
      reasons I think that if you reject nationalisation, you will cause our
      practical workers, our propagandists and agitators, to make the same
      mistakes as we brought about by our mistaken demand for restitution of the
      cut-off lands in our programme of 1903. Just as our demand for the
      restitution of the cut-off lands was interpreted in a narrower sense than
      it was meant by its authors, so now rejection of nationalisation and its
      replacement by the demand for division, to say nothing of the utterly con
      fused demand for municipalisation, will inevitably lead to so many
      mistakes by our practical workers, our propagandists and agitators, that
      very soon we shall regret having adopted the “division” or the
      municipalisation programme.

Iwill conclude by repeating my two main theses: first, the peasants will never
agree to municipalisation; secondly, without a democratic republic, without the
election of govern ment officials by the people, municipalisation would be
harmful.

[1]Lenin’sreport on the agrarian question at the Fourth
(Unity) Congress of the Party was not recorded in the Congress minutes and has
so far not been found. Nor is there in the Congress minutes, edited chiefly by
Mensheviks, any record of Lenin’s report on the current situation or of his
speech in reply to the debate on the attitude to the Duma. His speeches on other
questions were not recorded In full in the minutes.

[2]John—the Menshevik P. P. Maslov.

[3]Leninis referring to the following passage in Marx’s
article published in theNeue Rheinische Zeitung, N6. 169, on
December 15, 1848: “The wholeFrench terrorismwas nothing but aplebeian mannerof settling accounts with theenemies of the
bourgeoisie, with absolutism, feudalism and philistinism.” (Marx and
Engels,Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 67.)

[4]NarodnayaVolya(People’s Will)—a secret
political organisation of Narodnik terrorists, came into being in August 1879 as
a result of a split in the Narodnik organisation known as Zemlya i Volya (Land
and Freedom). The Narodnaya Volya was headed by an Executive Committee made up
of A. I. Zhelyabov, A. D. Mikhailov, M. F. Frolenko, N. A. Morozov,
V. N. Figner, S. L. Perovskaya, A. A. Kwiatkowski and others. While upholding
the views of Narodnik utopian socialism, its members began a political struggle
above all with the aim of overthrowing the autocracy and winning political
freedom. Their programme envisaged the organisation of a “permanent
people’s representative assembly” elected by universal suffrage, the
proclamation of democratic freedoms, the transfer of the land to the people, and
the elaboration of measures for the transfer of the factories to the
workers. “The Narodnaya Volya members made a step forward when they took
up the political struggle, but they failed to connect it with socialism,” wrote
Lenin (present edition, Vol. 8, p. 72).

TheNarodnaya Volya fought heroically against the tsarist autocracy. However,
proceeding from the fallacious theory of “active” heroes and a
“passive” crowd, they expected to bring about the reorganisation of
society by their own efforts—through individual terrorism, through
intimidation and disorganisation of the government—without the
participation of the people. After March 1, 1881, when Alexander II was
assassinated, the government routed the Narodnaya Volya through cruel reprisals,
including executions. Throughout the eighties members of the Narodnaya Volya
made fruitless attempts to revive their organisation. In 1886, for exam pie, a
group was formed under the leadership of A. I. Ulyanov (a brother of Lenin’s)
and P. Y. Shevyryov, which shared the traditions of the Narodnaya Volya. In
1887, following an abortive at tempt to organise the assassination of Alexander
III, the group was discovered, and its more active members were put to death.

Lenin,while criticising the erroneous, utopian programme of the Narodnaya
Volya, spoke very highly of the selfless struggle which its members waged
      against tsarism, as well as of their secrecy techniques and strictly
      centralised organisation.

[5]Kartvelov—N.G. Chichinadze, a Caucasian Menshevik.

[6]Borisov—S. A. Suvorov, who at the Fourth (Unity) Congress of the
 R.S.D.L.P. adhered to the Bolsheviks.

[7]Leninis quoting Karl Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach” (see
Marx and Engels,Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958,
p. 405).

[8]Petrunkevich,I. I., andRodichev,
F. I.—landlords, prominent Cadets and Zemstvo
officials.

[9]RusskoyeGosudarstvo(The Russian State)—a government
newspaper published in St. Petersburg from February 1 (14) to May 15
(28), 1906.